Notes of a Publicist

Written:Written on August 22 (September 4), 1907Published:Published in 1907 in the first symposiumVoice of LifeSt. Petersburg. Signed:N. L..

      Published according to the book text.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 13,

      pages62-74.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Afterthe dissolution of the Second Duma despondency, penitence, and apostasy
became the outstanding features of political literature. Beginning with
Mr. Struve, continuing withTovarishch, and ending with, a number of
writers supporting the Social-Democratic movement we witness a renunciation
of the revolution, of its traditions, and its methods of struggle, an effort in
one way or another to steer a course more to the right. To illustrate what some
Social-Democrats are now saying arid writing, we shall take the first articles
of theirs we come across in the cur rent periodical press—one by
Mr. Nevedomsky inObrazovaniye,[1]No. 7, and one by Mr. Vl. Gorn inTovarishch, No. 348.

Mr.M. Nevedomsky begins his article with a scathing criticism of the Cadets in
the Second Duma and a vehement defence of the Left-bloc tactics and behaviour of
the Social-Democrats. He ends his article, however, as follows:

“Speakingin the indicative mood, I will only say one thing, which
   should be obvious to every Social-Democrat, namely, at our present stage of
   political evolution, the ·activity of the socialist parties, in the
   long run, after all merely paves the way for the bourgeois parties and
   prepares for their temporary triumph.“Theupshot, in the imperative mood, is this: that whatever this
   ‘mimetic’ (‘one minute a brunette, the next a blonde’) Cadet Party may be,
   it is for the time being the only opposition party, and the activities of
   the socialist party have to be co-ordinated with its activities. This is
   dictated by the principle of economy of strength.”... “On the whole,
   speaking without irony [Mr. Nevedomsky had to make this reservation because
   he cannot write without conceits and extravagances which mislead both the
   readers and the author himself], this phrase of Milyukov’s quite
   correctly defines, in their essential features, the relations between the
   parties ... [this refers to the following phrase of Milyukoy’s: ‘The threat
   of interventionby the people may be put into effect only when the ground has been prepared
   for that intervention—and that is the object which all those who
   consider the powers of the Duma inadequate for the performance of its
   tremendous tasks should work towards’; let the Lefts prepare the ground and
   build up the movement—Mr. Nevedomsky rightly interprets this
   phrase—‘while the Cadets and the Duma would take account of that
   work’].... ‘Coming from the mouth of a spokesman of the accounting party
   that may not be devoid of cynicism, but when the question is formulated in
   that way by Plekhanov, for example, it is merely an exact and realistic
   definition of the line of conduct for the Social-Democrats and the method
   by which they are to utilise the forces of the liberal opposition.’"

“Speakingin the indicative mood, I will only say one thing, which
   should be obvious to every Social-Democrat, namely, at our present stage of
   political evolution, the ·activity of the socialist parties, in the
   long run, after all merely paves the way for the bourgeois parties and
   prepares for their temporary triumph.

“Theupshot, in the imperative mood, is this: that whatever this
   ‘mimetic’ (‘one minute a brunette, the next a blonde’) Cadet Party may be,
   it is for the time being the only opposition party, and the activities of
   the socialist party have to be co-ordinated with its activities. This is
   dictated by the principle of economy of strength.”... “On the whole,
   speaking without irony [Mr. Nevedomsky had to make this reservation because
   he cannot write without conceits and extravagances which mislead both the
   readers and the author himself], this phrase of Milyukov’s quite
   correctly defines, in their essential features, the relations between the
   parties ... [this refers to the following phrase of Milyukoy’s: ‘The threat
   of interventionby the people may be put into effect only when the ground has been prepared
   for that intervention—and that is the object which all those who
   consider the powers of the Duma inadequate for the performance of its
   tremendous tasks should work towards’; let the Lefts prepare the ground and
   build up the movement—Mr. Nevedomsky rightly interprets this
   phrase—‘while the Cadets and the Duma would take account of that
   work’].... ‘Coming from the mouth of a spokesman of the accounting party
   that may not be devoid of cynicism, but when the question is formulated in
   that way by Plekhanov, for example, it is merely an exact and realistic
   definition of the line of conduct for the Social-Democrats and the method
   by which they are to utilise the forces of the liberal opposition.’"

Weare willing to assume that Plekhanov experiences a certain sense
of. ... well, to put it mildly, embarrassment, when such gentlemen as these
kindly pat him on the back. But by his Cadet slogans, such as a single
platform for Social-Democrats and Cadets or the safeguarding of the Duma,
Plekhanov undoubtedly gave people the right tousehis words in
just that way.

Nowlisten to Mr. Vl. Gorn.

“Clearly,in order to defeat it [the anti-democratic coalition of
   the landowners and big bourgeois created by the electoral law of June 3]
   two conditions are necessary. First, all democratic sections, including the
   proletariat, should act together to contrapose one coalition to the other,
   and, secondly, the struggle should be waged notby devising the most
   decisive slogans with a view to splitting off elements that, are not
   revolutionary enough and forcing the movement of the avowedly revolutionary
   minority[Mr. Gorn’s italics], but by a real concrete fight, in
   which the masses themselves are drawn in, against the concrete measures of
   the anti-democratic coalition. To create a democratic coalition we do not
   need a merger, but only an agreement, covering ways and the immediate aims
   of the struggle. And such agreements—if the conscious representatives
   of the masses—the parties—will adopt the basis of achieving
   real changes in the conditions of social life and not merely a propaganda
   standpoint—are quite possible.”

“Clearly,in order to defeat it [the anti-democratic coalition of
   the landowners and big bourgeois created by the electoral law of June 3]
   two conditions are necessary. First, all democratic sections, including the
   proletariat, should act together to contrapose one coalition to the other,
   and, secondly, the struggle should be waged notby devising the most
   decisive slogans with a view to splitting off elements that, are not
   revolutionary enough and forcing the movement of the avowedly revolutionary
   minority[Mr. Gorn’s italics], but by a real concrete fight, in
   which the masses themselves are drawn in, against the concrete measures of
   the anti-democratic coalition. To create a democratic coalition we do not
   need a merger, but only an agreement, covering ways and the immediate aims
   of the struggle. And such agreements—if the conscious representatives
   of the masses—the parties—will adopt the basis of achieving
   real changes in the conditions of social life and not merely a propaganda
   standpoint—are quite possible.”

Isit not clear from these excerpts that both our heroes of fashionable Cadet
phrase-mongering are, in substance, saying one and the same thing? Mr. Gorn is
merely a bit more outspoken and has shown his hand a bit more, but he differs
from Mr. Nevedomsky no more than Mr. Struve does from Mr. Nabokov or
Mr. Maklakov.

Politicshas its inner logic. How many times has it been pointed out thattechnicalagreements between the Social-Democratsand the liberals are possible without leading in any way to apolitical bloc, which has always been rejected by all Party
    Social-Democrats (we say nothing of the non-Party Social-Democrats or those
    people who play a double game, saying one thing within the Party and
    another in the “free” non-Party press). And life has invariably
    upset these fine statements and good intentions, for under cover of
    “technical” agreements ideas of a political bloc have steadily
    forced their way to the top. In a petty-bourgeois country, during a period
    of bourgeois revolution, where there are a lot of petty-bourgeois
    intellectuals in the workers’ party, the tendency towards political
    subordination of the proletariat to the liberals has a very real basis. And
    it is this tendency, rooted in the objective state of affairs, that proves
    to be the sum and substance of all quasi-socialist political chicanery on
    the subject of coalitions with the Cadets. Mr. Gorn, with the
    naïveté of an
    intellectual whose language only is Social-Democratic, but whose whole
    mind, whole ideological background, and entire “marrow” are
    purely liberal or philistine, simply advocates a political bloc, a
    “democratic coalition”—neithermore nor less.

Itis highly characteristic that Mr. Gornwas obligedto make a
reservation: “we do not need a merger”! In doing so he merely betrayed the
remnants of a guilty socialist conscience. For in saying: “we do not need
a merger, but only an agreement”, he as good as gave a description of this
“agreement”, a definition of itscontent, which reveals
with the utmost clarity his Social-Democratic apostasy. It is not a question of
a word, of whether the thing is called a “merger” or an
“agreement”. It is a question of what the actual content of this
“conjunction” is. It is a question ofwhat priceyou are offering the Social-Democratic Labour Party to become the kept woman of
liberalism.

Theprice is clearly defined. It is:

(1)Toabandon the propaganda standpoint.

(2)Torefrain from “devising” decisive slogans.

(3)Tocease splitting off the elements that are not revolutionary enough.

(4)Torefrain from “forcing” the movement of the avowedly
    revolutionary minority.

Iwould give a prize to anyone who was capable of formulating a
clearer and more precise programme of down right and utterly vile apostasy. The
only difference between Mr. Struve and Mr. Gorn is that
Mr. Struve sees his way clearly and to a certain extent determines his own steps
“independently”, while Mr. Gorn is simply held in leading strings by
his Cadet mentors.

—Toabandon the propaganda standpoint—that is what the Cadets in the
Second Duma were all the time telling the people to do. This means not to
develop the political consciousness anddemandingnessof the
working-class masses and the peasantry, but to diminish both the one and the
other, to quell and suppress them, to advocate social peace.

—Notto devise decisive slogans—means to do what the Cadets have
done, namely, to give up the advocacy of slogans that the Social-Democrats had
put forward long before the revolution.

—Notto split ·off elements that are not revolutionary
enough—means abandoning all public criticism of Cadet hypocrisy, lies, and
reactionary views, it means taking Mr. Struve to one’s bosom.

—Notto force a movement of the avowedly revolutionary
minority—means, in effect, rejecting all revolutionary methods of
struggle. For it is absolutely indisputable that those who participated in the
revolutionary movement throughout 1905 were theavowedly revolutionary
minority:

it was because the masses who were fighting were in a minority—they were
nonetheless masses for being in a minority—that they did not achieve full
success in their struggle. But all the successes which the
emancipation movement in Russia did achieve, all the gains it did make, werewholly and without exceptionthe result of this struggle of the massesalone, who were in a minority. That in the first place. Secondly, what
the liberals and their yes-men call “forced movements”, was theonlymovement in which the masses (although on this first occasion,
unfortunately, in a minority) took part independently and not through
deputies—the only movement whichwas not afraid ofthe
people, which expressed the interests of the masses, and which, had the
support (as was proved by the elections tothe First and especially to the Second Dumas) of the vast masses who did not
      take part directly in the revolutionary struggle.

Inspeaking about “forcing the movement of the avowedly revolutionary
minority”, Mr. Gorn is guilty of a very widespread exaggeration of a
purely Burenin type. When Burenin’s

newspaper[2]warred with Alexinsky
during the period of the Second Duma, it always tried to make out that its
hostility towards him was due not to his fight for political
freedom, but to the fact that he wanted freedom in order to ... smash windows,
climb lampposts, and so on. The same Black-Hundred preparations are made by the
publicist ofTovarishch. He tries to make out that the only thing that
prevents an agreement between the socialists and the liberals is not that the
socialists have always stood and will continue to stand for the development of
the revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary activity of the masses in
general, but the fact that the socialists areforcing, that is
precipitating, artificially whip ping up the movement, that they are
fomenting. movements which areavowedlyhopeless.

Ourreply to these tricks will be brief. The whole social ist press, Menshevik
as well as Bolshevik, during the period of both the First and Second Dumas
condemned the “forcing” of the movement in any way.... It
is not on account of the forcing of the movement that the Cadets fought the
Social-Democrats during both the First and the Second Dumas, but because the
Social-Democratsdevelopthe revolutionary consciousness of the masses,
their readiness to put forward demands, andexposethe reactionary
nature of the Cadets and the mirage of constitutional illusions. These
well-known historical facts cannot be disposed of by any newspaper
acrobatics. As regards the form of Mr. Gorn’s statement, it is highly
characteristic of our times, when “educated society” turns away
from the revolution and seizes upon pornography. A person who considers
himself a Social-Democrat betakes himself to a non-Party newspaper in order to
address the public at large in the manner ofNovoye Vremyaon the
subject of the workers’ party “forcing” the movement of the
“avowed” minority! Renegade moods among us create also renegade
morals.

Nowlet us examine the question from another angle. The views of the Nevedomskys
and Gorns, which arouse such disgust when put forward by quasi-Social-Democrats,
are, beyond question, the highly typical and natural views of wide circles of
our bourgeois intelligentsia, liberal-mind ed “society”, disaffected
civil servants, etc. It is not enough to describe these views as an expression
of the politically spineless, flabby, and wavering petty bourgeoisie. They must
be explained also from the standpoint of the existing state of affairs in the
development of our revolution.

Whyis it that certain circles of the petty bourgeoisie develop such views just
now, on the eve of the Third Duma? Because these circles, who meekly change
their convictions with every shift in government policy, believe in the
Octobrist Duma, i. e., they consider its mission practicable and hasten to
adjust
themselves to the “Octobrist reforms”, hasten to find theoretical
reasons justifying their accommodation to Octobrism.

Themission of the Octobrist Duma, as envisaged by the government, is to
consummate the revolution with a direct deal between the old regime and the
landlords and biggest bourgeoisie on the basis of a definite minimum of
constitutional reforms. Speaking in the abstract, there is nothing
absolutely
impossible in this, since in Western Europe a number of bourgeois revolutions
are being consummated by the consolidation of “Octobrist”
constitutional systems. The only question is whether Octobrist “reforms”
capable of stopping the revolution are possible in present-day Russia. Are not
these Octobrist “reforms”, owing to the deep roots of our
revolution, doomed to the same failure as the Cadet “reforms”? Will not
the Octobrist Duma be as brief an episode as the Cadet Dumas were, an episode on
the road towards re-establishing the rule of the Black Hundreds and the
autocracy?

Welived through a period of direct revolutionary struggle of the masses (1905),
which resulted in certain gains of freedom. Then we experienced a period of
suspension of this Struggle (1906 and half of 1907). This period gave reactiona number of victories and not a single victory to the revolution, which lost
    the gains of the first period. The second period was a Cadet period, one
    of constitutional illusions. The masses still believed, more or less, in
    “parliamentarism” under the autocracy, and the autocracy,
    realising the danger of, pure Black-Hundred domination, sought to come to
    terms with the Cadets, experimented,tried onvarious types of
    constitutional costumes, tested what measure of reforms the
    “masters” of Russia, the biggest landlords, were capable of
    adopting. The experiment of the Cadet constitution ended in failure,
    although the Cadets in the Second Duma behaved in a perfectly Octobrist
    manner and not only refrained from attacking the government or
    stirring up the masses against it, but systematically soothed the masses,
    combating the “Left”, i. e., the parties of the proletariat and
    the peasantry and openly and vigorously supporting the existing government
    (the budget, etc.). The experiment of the Cadet constitution failed, in
    short, not because the Cadets or the government lacked good will, but
    because the objective contradictions of the Russian revolution proved to betoo deep-seated. These contradictionsproved to beso
    profound, that the Cadet bridge was unable to span the gulf. The experiment
    showed that even with the mass struggle completely suppressed for a time,
    even with the old regime having a completely free hand in rigging the
    elections, etc., the peas ant masses (and in a bourgeois revolution
    the outcome depends. most of all on the peasantry) made demands whichnoart of diplomacy on the part of the Cadet go betweens was able
    to adjust to the domination of the privileged landlords. If Mr. Struve now
    bears malice against the

Trudoviks[3](not to mention the Social-Democrats), and ifRech[4]wages a regular campaign against them, this is no
    accident, no mere annoyance on the part of a bourgeois advocate whose
    services have been rejected by the muzhik. It is an inevitable political
    step in the evolution of the Cadets: they failed to reconcile the landlords
    with the Trudoviks,consequently(for the bourgeois intelligentsia
    this is theonly possibleconclusion) what is necessary is not to
    rally still broader masses against the land lords, but tolowerthe
    demands of the Trudoviks, tomakemore concessionsto the landlords, to “discard revolutionary
utopias”, as Struve and theRechsay, or to stop inventing
decisive slogans and forcing the movement, as Mr. Gorn, the new servant of the
Cadets, says.

Thegovernmentaccommodatesitself to the landlords by placing the
elections entirely in their hands and virtually depriving the peasantry of the
suffrage. The Cadets accommodate themselves to the landlords by attacking the
Trudoviks for their revolutionariness and uncompromising attitude: The
non-party politicians, like the contributors toTovarishchin general
and Mr. Gorn in particular, accommodate themselves to the landlords by calling
upon the proletariat and the peasantry to “harmonise”
(“co-ordinate”, as Mr. Nevedomsky puts it) their policy with that of
the Cadets, to enter into a “democratic coalition” with the Cadets,
to renounce “decisive slogans”, and so on and so forth.

Thegovernment is acting systematically. Step by step it is taking away what has
been gained by the “forced movement” and what has been left
defenceless during the lull in that movement. Step by step it is trying to find
out what “reforms” the landlords could be induced to agree to. Could
not the Cadets have done this? Is it owing to interference from the Lefts that
the Cadets could not, despite their sincere desire and vain efforts? In that
case, the franchise of the “Lefts” will have to be curtailed and
the decision placed in the hands of the Octobrists: only ifthis
experiment, too, should fail, will it be necessary to place ourselves
entirely in the power of the “Council of the United

Nobility”.[5]

Thereis sense, method, and logic in the actions of he government. It is the
logic of the landlord’s class interests. These interests have to be
protected; after all, the bourgeois development of Russia has to be safeguarded
too.

Tocarry out these plans the government requires that the interests and movement
of themassesshould beforciblysuppressed, that they should
be deprived of the suffrage and handed over to the tender mercies of the
130,000. Whether it will succeed in carrying out these plans no one can say at
present. This question will be answered only bystruggle.

WeSocial-Democrats are answering this questionby ourstruggle. And
    the Cadets are answering itby struggle...against the Left. The Cadets are fightingfor the
government’ssolution of this question: they did this systematically
in the Second Duma in the parliamentary field. Now, too, they are doing it
systematically by their ideological struggle against the Social-Democrats and
the Trudoviks.

Ofcourse, to the ordinary Russian intellectual, as well as to any half-educated
petty bourgeois, this sounds paradoxical; the Cadets, who call themselves
democrats and make liberal speeches, fight for the government solution of the
question! It is so obviously incongruous! If they are democrats, then the place
for them is the “democratic coalition”! This is such an obvious conclusion
for political simpletons, whom even two years of the Russian revolution have
not taught to seek the true basis of both the government s measures and
the liberals’ spate of talk in thestruggle of the different
classes. We have any amount of “Marxists” from the intellectual
camp who profess the principles of the class struggle while in reality they use
purely liberal arguments when talking about the Cadets, about the role of the
Duma, and about the boycott! And how many more Cadet votings for the budget will
these political simpletons need before they can digest what has long been a
familiar sight in Europe, namely, that of a liberal making speeches against the
government and sup porting it on every important issue.

Thereplacement of the Second Duma by the Third is the replacement of the Cadet,
who acts in the Octobrist manner, by the Octobrist who acts with the help of
the Cadet. Predominant in the Second Duma was the party of the bourgeois
intellectuals, who called themselves democrats where the people were concerned
and supported the government where the bourgeoisie was concerned. Predominant
in the Third Duma will be the landlords and the big bourgeoisie, who hire the
bourgeois intellectuals for a make-believe opposition and for business
services. This simple truth is borne out by the whole political behaviour of the
Cadet Party and by the Second Duma in particular. Even the man in the street has
now begun to grasp this simple truth; we shall refer to such a witness as
Mr. Zhilkin, whomit would be absurd to suspect of Bolshevik, sympathies or of prejudiced and
uncompromising hostility towards the Cadets.

Intoday’s issue ofTovarishch(No. 351), Mr. Zhilkin conveys the
impressions of a “cheerful” (sic! Mr. Zhilkin understands
“cheerfulness” in much the same way as Gorn or Nevedomsky)
provincial in the following words:

“TheOctobrist landlords I spoke to argue as follows: ‘It’s all
   right to vote for the Cadets. The good thing about them is that they are
   tractable. In the First Duma they wanted too much. In the Second they
   hacked down. They even made cuts in their programme. In the Third they’ll
   give way still more. I daresay they’ll come to some arrangement. Besides,
   to tell the truth, there isn’t any Octobrist whose election we could
   ensure.“‘LettheCadets get elected. The difference between us
   isn’t very great. They are sure to go to the right in the Third
   Duma....  We’re friendly with the Octobrists out of necessity.... What
   public speakers or big men do they have?’"

“TheOctobrist landlords I spoke to argue as follows: ‘It’s all
   right to vote for the Cadets. The good thing about them is that they are
   tractable. In the First Duma they wanted too much. In the Second they
   hacked down. They even made cuts in their programme. In the Third they’ll
   give way still more. I daresay they’ll come to some arrangement. Besides,
   to tell the truth, there isn’t any Octobrist whose election we could
   ensure.

“‘LettheCadets get elected. The difference between us
   isn’t very great. They are sure to go to the right in the Third
   Duma....  We’re friendly with the Octobrists out of necessity.... What
   public speakers or big men do they have?’"

Thosewho judge of parties by their names, programmes, promises, and speeches,
or are content with crude Bernsteinised “Marxism”, which consists
in reiterating the axiom about support for bourgeois democracy in a bourgeois
revolution, may cherish hopes in regard to a democratic coalition of the Lefts
and the Cadets, in the Third Duma. But those with the slightest revolutionary
flair and thoughtful attitude towards the lessons of our revolution, or those
who are really guided by the principle of tile class struggle and judge of
parties by their class character, will not be in the least surprised to find
that the party of bourgeois intellectuals is fit only to perform flunkey
services for the party of the big bourgeois. The Gorns and Nevedomskys
are capable of believing, that the Cadets’ differences with the democrats are an
exception, and their differences with the Octobrists a rule. It is exactly the
other way round. The Cadets are, true kin to the Octobrists by their very class
nature. Cadet democracy is sheer window-dressing, a temporary reflection of the
democracy of the masses, or a downright hoax, which the Russian Bernsteinians
and petty bourgeois, especially those from the newspaperTovarishch,
fall for.

Andso, if you view the matter from this angle, if you grasp the true
historical role of the Cadet—that bourgeoisintellectual, who helps the landlord to satisfy the muzhik with a beggarly
    reform—the whole infinite wisdom of the Gorn and Nevedomsky gentry,
    who advise the proletariat toharmonisetheir activity with that
    of the Cadets, will stand revealed to you! The picture of the Octobrist
    “reforms”, which we are promised, is quite clear. The landlord
    “sets up” the muzhik, sets him up in such a manner that the
    population cannot be induced to accept the reforms without punitive
    expeditions, without floggings of the peasants and shootings of the
    workers. The Cadet professor registers opposition: he proves, from the
    standpoint of the modern science of law, the necessity of constitutionally
    en forcing the regulations governing punitive expeditions, while blaming the
    police for being over-zealous. The Cadet lawyer registers opposition: he
    argues that, according to the law, sixty strokes per man should be given and
    not 200, and that money should be assigned to the government for birch rods,
    while stipulating that the law should be observed. The Cadet physician is
    prepared to count the pulse of the victim of flogging and write a research
    about the necessity of reducing the upper limit of strokes by half.

Wasnot the Cadet opposition in the Second Duma of just this kind? And is it not
clear that for the sake of such an opposition the Octobrist landlord will not
only elect a Cadet to the Duma, but will agree to pay him a professorial or
some other kind of salary?

Ademocratic coalition of socialists and Cadets in the Second Duma, after the
Second Duma, or during the Third Duma would in fact, by virtue of the objective
state of affairs, only mean turning the workers’ party into a blind arid
wretched, adjunct of the liberals, complete betrayal by the socialists of the
interests of the proletariat and the interests of the revolution. Very likely,
the Nevedomskys and Gorns do not realise what they are doing. With such
people convictions are very often not more deeply seated than the tip of
their tongues. In effect, their endeavours amount to putting an end to the
independent party of the working class, putting an end to Social-Democracy. The
Social-Democrats, who understand the tasks confronting them, should put an end
to these gentlemen. Unfortunately, among us the concept of bourgeois revolutionis still interpreted in a one-sided manner. We overlook, for example, the fact
that this revolution should show the proletariat—and it alone can be the
first to show the proletariat—what the bourgeoisie of agivencountry isin actual fact, what thenationalpeculiarities of
the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie are in the givennationalbourgeois revolution. The real, definitive, and mass separation of the
proletariat as a class, in opposition to all the bourgeois parties, can only
occur when the history ofits owncountry reveals to the proletariatthe entire characterof the bourgeoisie as a class, as a political
unit—the entire character of the petty bourgeoisie as a section, as a
definite ideological and political unit revealing itself in some open, broadly
political activities. We must incessantly explain to the proletariat the
theoretical truths about the nature of the class interests of the bourgeoisie
and petty bourgeoisie in capitalist society. These truths, however, will be
driven home to really broad masses of the proletariat only when these classes
will have visible, tangible experience of the behaviour of the parties of one
class or another, when the clear realisation of their class nature is
supplemented by the immediate reaction of the proletarian mind to the whole
character of the bourgeois parties. Nowhere else in the world, probably,
has the bourgeoisie revealed in the bourgeois revolution such reactionary
brutality, such a close alliance with the old regime, such
“freedom” from anything remotely resembling sincere sympathy
towards culture, towards progress, towards the preservation of human
dignity, as it has with us—so let our proletariat derive from the
Russian bourgeois revolution a triple hatred of the bourgeoisie and a
determination to fight it. Nowhere else in the world, probably, did the
petty bourgeoisie, beginning with the “Popular

Socialists”[6]and the Trudoviks and ending with the intellectuals
who have wormed themselves into the Social-Democratic movement, display
such cowardice and spinelessness in the struggle, such a shameful epidemic
of renegade moods, such toadyism towards the heroes of bourgeois fashion
or reactionary outrages—so let our proletariat derive from our
bourgeois revolution a triple contempt for petty-bourgeois flabbiness and
vacillation. No matter how our revolutionmay develop, nomatterwhat severe trials our proletariat may at times
    have to go through,this hatred and this con tempt will help it to close its
    ranks and rid itself of worth less offshoots of alien classes; it will
    increase its forces and steel it for dealing the blows with which it will
    overwhelm the whole of bourgeois society when the time comes.

[1]Obrazovaniye(Education)—a literary,
popular-scientific, social and political monthly published in
St. Petersburg from 1892 to 1909. In 1906-08, the magazine published
articles by Bolsheviks. Issue No. 2 for 1906 contained Chapters V-IX of
Lenin’s bookThe Agrarian Question and the “Critics of
Marx” (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 103-222).

[2]Burenin’snewspaper—the name given by Lenin to the
Black Hundred-monarchist newspaperNovoye Vremya(New
Times). Burenin, who contributed to the newspaper, hounded the
representatives of all progressive trends.

[3]Trudoviks(fromtrud—“labour”)—a
group of petty-bourgeois democrats, formed in April 1906 from the peasant
deputies to the First Duma.

TheTrudoviks demanded the abolition of all restrictions based on class
or nationality, the democratisation of the Zemstvos and urban
self-government bodies, and universal suffrage in the Duma elections. Their
agrarian programme was based on the Narodnik principles of
“equalised” land tenure; the establishment of a national stock of
distributable land, formed from state, crown, and monastery lands, as well
as from privately owned lands where they exceeded an established labour
standard; compensation being envisaged in the case of alienated private
lands. Lenin pointed out in 1906 that the typical Trudovik was a peasant
who “is not averse to a compromise with the monarchy, to settling
down quietly onhis ownplot of land under the bourgeois system;
but at the present time his main efforts are concentrated on the fight
against the landlords for the land, on the fight against the feudal state
and for democracy” (see present edition, Vol. 11, p. 229).

Inthe Duma the Trudoviks vacillated between the Cadets and the
Social-Democrats, their vacillations being due to the class nature itself
of peasant petty proprietors. Nevertheless, since the Trudoviks represented
the peasant masses, the tactics of the Bolsheviks in the Duma were to
arrive at agreements with them on individual issues with a view to waging a
joint struggle against the Cadets and the tsarist autocracy. In 1917, the
Trudovik groupmerged with the “Popular Socialist” Party and actively
supported the our bourgeois Provisional Government. After the October
Socialist Revolution the Trudoviks sided with the bourgeois counter
revolution.

[4]Rech(Speech)—a daily newspaper, the central
organ of the Cadet Party, published in St.Petersburg from February 23
(March 8), 1906, under the actual editorship of P.N. Milyukov and
I.V. Hessen and with the close co-operation of M.M. Vinaver,
P.D. Dolgorukov, P.B. Struve, and others. The newspaper was closed down by
the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet on October 26
(November 8), 1917. It was eventually reissued (up to August 1918) under
various names:Nasha Rech(Our Speech),Slobodnaya Rech(Free Speech),Vek(Century),Novaya
Rech(New Speech), andNash Vek(Our
Century).

[5]Councilof the United Nobility—a counter-revolutionary
organisation of reactionary landlords founded in May 1906 at the First
Congress of Delegates of the Gubernia Societies of the Nobility; it existed
up to October 1917. The chief aim of this organisation was to defend the
autocratic regime, landlordism, and the privileges of the nobility. The
Council was headed by Count A. A. Bobrinsky, Prince
N. F. Kasatkin-Rostovsky, Count D. A. Olsufyev, V. M. Purishkevich, and
others. Lenin called the Council of the United Nobility a “council of
united feudalists”. The Council virtually became a semi-government
body which dictated to the government legislative proposals aimed at
defending the interests of the feudalists. During the period of the Third
Duma many of its members sat on the Council of State and held key positions
in the Black-Hundred organisations.

[6]PopularSocialists—members of the petty-bourgeois
Trudovik Popular Socialist Party, which separated from the Right wing of
the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1906. The P.S.’s stood for partial
nationalisation of the land on a redemption basis and the distribution of
the land among the peasants according to the “labour
standard”. They were in favour of a bloc with the Cadets. Lenin
called them “Social-Cadets”, “petty-bourgeois
opportunists”, and “Socialist-Revolutionary Mensheviks”
who vacillated between the Cadets and the S.R.’s, and he emphasised that
this party “differs very little from the Cadets, since it has
discarded from its programme both the Republic and the demand for all the
land”. The party’s leaders were A.V. Peshekhonov,
N.F. Annensky, V.A. Myakotin, and others. After the bourgeois-democratic
revolution of February 1917 the Popular Socialist Party merged with the
Trudoviks and actively supported the bourgeois Provisional Government, in
which it was represented. After the October Socialist Revolution the P.S.’s
participated in plots and armed acts against the Soviets. The party went
out of existence during the period of foreign military intervention and
civil war.